State Sector Act 1988 and Amendment Act 2013

Last updated: 11 August 2015

Amendments

The State Sector Act 1988, together with the Public Finance Act 1989 and Crown Entities Act 2004, is one of the principal statutes governing the management of the State sector and public finances in New Zealand. In 2013, substantive amendments were made to these three Acts, drawing on the work of the Better Public Services Advisory Group. Collectively, the changes were designed to strengthen collaboration throughout the State sector system, to improve financial flexibility, and to provide more meaningful performance information for scrutiny by Parliament.

The main changes to the State Sector Act:

updated the purpose of the Act, replacing the previous long title with new section 1A that pitches the Act's purpose at the level of the State sector as a system;

strengthened the role of the State Services Commissioner in leading the State services and ensuring that government agencies work collectively as a system; for the first time, the Commissioner's role was set out in legislation;

broadened the Commissioner's functions to include the authority to review the State sector system in order to advise on possible improvements to agency, sector, and system-wide performance;

extended the responsibilities of public service chief executives to their Ministers, including matters relating to the collective interests of government, and stewardship of the interests of the Crown and departments in the medium and long term;

gave chief executives the power to delegate statutory functions and powers between agencies and, subject to certain safeguards, to non-government service providers;

established a new organisational arrangement, called a departmental agency, as an option for providing public services;

gave the State Services Commissioner more flexibility in a number of areas, including: the process for appointing chief executives; to transfer chief executives within the public service when a vacancy arises; and greater ability to modify the code of conduct where different persons or agencies operate in different legal, commercial or operational contexts;

gave the Commissioner the authority to draft government policy on workforce matters from the perspective of the State sector system as a whole, for ministerial consideration and approval;

gave the Commissioner clearer responsibilities for developing senior leadership and management capability including approving appointments to key positions; it means more flexibility to support professional development and to support talented people to move to where they can make the greatest contribution.

View an explanation of the changes. The paper records the rationale for the legislative amendments, including the more significant shifts in thinking at various stages during the policy development, legislation drafting and parliamentary processes.

SSC Guidance on Delegations under Section 41 of the State Sector Act 1988, effective April 2014

This Guidance on Delegations under Section 41 of the State Sector Act 1988 (PDF, 63KB) provides chief executives and officials with an overview of section 41 as amended, together with practical suggestions for implementing the section's expanded powers of delegation. It includes a draft template delegation in Appendix 1. The full text of section 41, as amended, is set out in Appendix 2.